Farming is a wonderful life lesson. With a little care and patience, something that starts out as small and seemingly insignificant as a seed can flourish into a beautiful plant with the capability of nourishing others. It’s also a great example of garbage in, garbage out. Try growing a great vegetable garden next summer with nutrient-deficient soil and waste water. Not easy, right?

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain and stiffness in the tendons, muscles and ligaments, coupled with trouble concentrating, sleep disruption and fatigue. Those dealing with FM are forced to live with these uncomfortable symptoms every day of their lives. But there’s some evidence that certain diet and lifestyle changes can help.

Pycnogenol is one of the most important, useful and researched dietary supplements. I first reported on Pycnogenol in this column in 1991 and have gone on to write six books on Pycnogenol (1–7). Scientists continue to expand the pool of published scientific research about this unique blend of bioflavonoid-related nutrients extracted from a specific plant species (Pinus maritime, the Maritime Pine that grows exclusively along the coast of southwest France) by a patented process that concentrates specific antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients. Therefore, it is important to keep readers abreast of the extensive ongoing research on Pycnogenol.

In 1977, at age 24, I had the good fortune to become sales manager of a fledgling natural foods distributor in the Northeast. Over the next 20 years, we grew the business from $900,000 to $225 million, when we merged Stow Mills with United Natural Foods.

Unless you’re Kreskin (or you don’t mind looking foolish), don’t go on record confidently predicting the outcome of a court case before the decision is handed down. Same thing goes for horseracing, Super Bowl match-ups or roulette. And based on recent events, Institute of Medicine decisions should be added to the list.

Developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann over 200 years ago in Germany, homeopathy is a medicinal system inspired by the body’s propensity toward healing, preventative care and natural therapeutics. Homeopathic medicine works with the body in order to treat the causes of symptoms instead of just eliminating symptoms. In 2007, an estimated 3.9 million adults and 900,000 children used homeopathic medicine, according to the National Health Interview Survey (1).

In September, consumers and the dietary supplement industry achieved a major victory in the pursuit of good health. On September 28, 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a coalition of health practitioners, scientists and manufacturers, including the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), agreed on the wording for qualified health claims for selenium against various forms of cancer.

Santiago de Chile can be a beautiful place, but one of the first things a visitor notices is that it is a city of stray dogs. They are everywhere. No one abuses them. I’ve never seen that happen even once during my two, week-long visits here. But, then, I’ve never seen anyone feed them either. Some are plumpish, but most are lean and hungry. And too many have visible ribcages pushing out against fur.

Recently, a mega-food manufacturer did something very uncharacteristic of big business. In the name of helping to save the environment, it rolled out compostable bags for a line of its snack chips. This product is marketed to your average, mainstream supermarket shopper.